[électrotrad] – Press review

Les
métamorphoses
01.
02.
03.
04.
05.
06.
07.
08.
09.
L
ET’S BE HONEST: traditional folk music doesn’t always share women’s stories in
oppressed, forced into marriage, killed, or completely absent can be challenging.
Because of this, Québécois chanteuse Mélisande decided to examine the plight
of women in traditional Québécois music with passion and creativity, resulting in
her innovative new project, Mélisande [électrotrad], that creatively merges past
and present. Bringing in electronic beats, a feminist perspective, and the cuttingedge music of modern Montréal, Mélisande re-interprets some of the oldest songs
from Québec’s musical history. Songs where the women of Québec’s past struggle
10.
11.
JE FAIS LA DIFFICILE (4:10)
LE VIN EST BON (4:00)
SORT DE VIEILLE FILLE (3:46)
LA BLANCHE BICHE (5:01)
MOURIR À 17 ANS (4:03)
LES MÉTAMORPHOSES (5:24)
LA RÉCOMPENSE (6:57)
J’AI PLANTÉ UN CHÊNE (3:24)
COMPLAINTE DE DANIEL
LEBEL (4:40)
DANS PARIS Y’A T’UNE
BRUNE (4:49)
L’IVROGNESSE (1:37)
identity as mothers, lovers, wives, and leaders. Joined by her husband, renowned
Alexandre de Grosbois-Garand (of Genticorum),
master producer Mark Busic on keyboards and beat programming, and violinist/
mandolinist/banjo player Robin Boulianne, Mélisande has polished the mirror of
Coming from her early background as a popular Québécois singer-songwriter,
Mélisande stepped into Québécois traditional music with the express purpose of
modernizing French-Canadian women’s role in trad-folk, while at the same time
making music that was both current and honest. By using her songwriting skills,
Mélisande
of an Old Maid)–in which a woman is complaining about her lack of a husband–by
adding verses that give the woman the power of choice. “I wrote some verses that
Mélisande says. “It
makes her a woman with a head on her shoulders, and it could be a good reason to
Woman) portrays a woman who makes her husband stay home with the children
while she goes out to have a good time at the bar. Other songs just needed a little
trying to decide which husband to take and ranking them according to how annoying
Mélisande says. “I added ‘I want a musician because he is handy with his
hands.’ Also in this song we had some fun with the verses, adding: ‘We don’t want a
politician because we can’t trust him and his hands are not clean.’ We made some
www.melisandemusic.com
Press Publicity:
DEVON LEGER
206.557.4447
[email protected]
Radio Publicity:
On the debut album from Mélisande [électrotrad], Les Métamorphoses, you’ll hear all
the key elements of traditional Québécois music here: la turlutte (lilting mouth music),
les complaintes (old ballads), les chansons à répondre (call-and-response songs),
and the beautiful melodies from old world France; but you’ll also hear elements of
alternative rock and pop, even prog rock. As Mélisande continues to dig deep into
the traditional music of her heritage, she proves that the past isn’t cast in stone, that
our musical identity is our own to create.
— TradiTional Singer of The Year —
2014 Canadian folk Music awards
MINDIE LIND
206.557.4447
[email protected]
www.hearthmusic.com
CHARTS
# 1 - Top 5 World Music Albums of 2014 - Le Devoir (Dec 24th 2014)
# 5 - Top 10 New World - March 16th 2014 - WRIR's Global A Go-Go
# 8 - Top 10 Canadian Albums - Canadian Roots Airplay for March 2015 - Northern Journey Online
# 9 - Top 10 World Music Albums - Spin The Globe/Sound Roots (Feb 2015)
REVIEWS
- Pop Matters (May 7th 2015)
« 8/10 [... ] It’s an album with broad appeal: creative and intelligent content coupled with music that blends the best of
old and new worlds. It’s a positively inspiring, toe-stomping exploration of Quebecois folk that’ll sound just as natural on
the college dancefloor as the folk festival circuit. Melisande is the voice of today’s Quebec: a creative fusion of tradition
and innovation that honors the past while re-interpreting it for the present. If this is the future of folk, we’re in good
hands. »
- Huffington Post US Edition (March 13th 2015)
« [...] an unusually well-balanced blend. [...] definitely achieved some hard-edged traditude! »
- WRUV Review (March 4th 2015)
« [...] awesome vocals, & tasteful electronic embellishments. A fresh take on a fine genre & a real treat! »
- Le Devoir (Dec 24th 2014)
« Ce premier disque marque une nouvelle étape du trad québécois. [...] Une vraie réussite ! »
- Penguin Eggs (Winter 2014-2015)
« It's fun. It's really well done. [...] This is a lovely record. »
- Trad Magazine (Nov-Dec 2014)
« This album greatly deserves a BRAVO !!! »
- Le Devoir (May 9th 2014)
« A fresh proposition to discover »
- L'éveil (May 16th 2014)
« Here is a nice way to get introduced to Québécois folk music! »
RADIO/TV
- Interview (in French) at Catherine et Laurent on MAtv (Dec 11th 2014) - 30th minute of the show
- Interview (in French) with Patrick Masbourian on the PM show on ICI Radio-Canada Première (May 19th 2014)
- Feature by Mélanye Boissonnault (in French) on the 15-18 show on ICI Radio-Canada Première (May 5th 2014)
NEWSPAPER FEATURES
- Article in Kithfolk (Spring 2014)
- Article in Le Devoir (Dec 13th 2014)
- Article in Le Laurier (Dec 6th 2014) with frontpage picture
- Article in La Presse (May 8th 2014)
- Article in L'Oeil Régional (April 30th 2014)
- Article in Le Devoir (Dec 27th 2013) with picture!
US Edition
Stephen D. Winick
Folklorist, Music Critic, Editor
Posted: 03/13/2015 12:03 pm EDT
Email
Traditude: Traditional Music
With a Twist
Mélisande [électrotrad]. Photo by Cloé Jourdain.
A couple of weeks ago, I returned from the Folk Alliance International
conference with an earful of tunes and a bagful of CDs. At the conference
I noted a particular orientation to traditional folk music that I've come to
think of as "traditude." Traditude is having enough confidence in your
traditions that you don't mind playing at the margins. You might
collaborate with someone from another musical world, add unusual
instruments to your band, or bend the rules of composition or
arrangement. You don't just artificially combine, say, Irish fiddle tunes
and Go-Go, but you don't rule out that combination if it says what you
want to say.
OK, so traditude is hard to define, but I know it when I hear it. Québec
quartet Mélisande sports a moniker which screams traditude, echoing
earlier bands like Malicorne, Melusine, and Maluzerne... but Mélisande is
also the lead singer's first name. She trained in contemporary chanson,
prog rock, and pop, then shifted to folk and promptly won 2014's
traditional singer of the year at the Canadian Folk Music awards. She
sings and plays electric guitar, and is joined on her "electrotrad" project
Les Métamorphoses by Alex de Grosbois-Garand (of Genticorum) on
voice, electric bass, and flute; Robin Boulianne on fiddle, mandolin,
banjo, and voice; and Mark Busic on keyboards, loops, and programming.
In their sound you'll hear echoes of what Afro-Celt Sound System did with
jigs and reels, or Talitha McKenzie with Scottish mouth music, but you'll
hear it applied expertly to Québec folksongs with a focus on the words
rather than dance beats. Sparkling electronics, insistent grooves, and a
touch of industrial noise are tempered by the organic flute, fiddle, and
mandolin in an unusually well-balanced blend.
A theme pervading the songs on Les Métamorphoses is the lives of
women. Two songs stand out for the richness of their imagery: "La
Blanche Biche" is a hair-raising tale of a woman transformed into a white
doe, while "Les Métamorphoses" describes a woman transforming herself
into a variety of plants and animals to escape the amorous advances of
another sorcerer. Both are old, scary, challenging songs, but worth
thinking about. Mélisande has adapted some of the other lyrics to better
reflect modern times. In "Sort de Vielle Fille" ("The Old Maid's Lot,")
which describes barriers Québec women experience to getting married,
she added a few verses indicating that her narrator's intelligence and selfconfidence might scare men away, something that wasn't in the original
song. Update a folksong like that, put it over a bassline and keyboard riffs
that could come from an 80s pop song, strap on your electric guitar, and
you've definitely achieved some hard-edged traditude!
Read more about Mélisande in Kithfolk. And check out their official video
below!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om-WyWIdl8A
popMATTERS !
Melisande [electrotrad]
Les Metamorphoses
BY!HANS!ROLLMAN
7!May!2015
IF LES METAMORPHOSES IS THE FUTURE OF FOLK, WE’RE IN GOOD HANDS.
8/10 - I’ve got the city right, but the venue’s all wrong. Montreal Airport is a strange place to be listening to a
French-Canadian trad-folk album. Although located in Quebec, the heart of French-Canadian culture, the
airport’s very existence is a strange vortex of dissonance. Named after a prime minister whose reputation is still
controversial in Quebec (not least for declaring martial law in the province during a separatist terrorist crisis in
the ‘70s), and built on grounds that hosted horse-racing a century ago, the airport is a far stretch from the
quaint cobbled streets and imposing classical and gothic revival architecture of downtown Montreal. Here, the
beers are mostly American, and the only decent food comes from a Japanese sushi venue. A search of dutyfree yields nary a Quebec wine, and the only diversion to be had in the joint comes from a well-stocked iStore.
A token effort is made by a café offering local micro-brews and faux-fur-clad armchairs by a faux-fire, but the
paucity of beers on tap doesn’t beat the lineup required to get in.
Yet insofar as the sterile globalized reality of Montreal’s international airport reflects the changing nature of
what is without a doubt one of the most colorful Euro-settler cultures in the Americas, it’s a suitable backdrop
to a band which also reflects the changing nature of that identity. Where Montreal Airport reflects the pale and
stale of global culture, however, Melisande [electrotrad] represents very much the opposite: a testament to
the truly creative results that can emerge from fearless innovation of traditional culture, expressed in this case
through the musical stylings of a folk band that will appeal to a far broader audience than most.
Folk as a genre is handling cosmopolitan globalization extremely well. The thirst of global culture for unusual
and evocative “folksy” regions of the world that offer colourful and deeply human resistance to the bland
aether of neoliberal pop has rendered quaint corners of the globe newly hip. From the Canadian East Coast to
the Balkans; from the tortured, battle-scarred villages of Latin America and Southeast Asia to the Cajun, rural
folk cultures are hot. But what’s truly exciting is that they haven’t simply acquiesced to their own fetishization;
they’ve struck back with every bit of energy and innovation and shot a jolt to the system that affirms the hidden
hopes of cynical urbanites the world over.
Melisande [electrotrad] is a case in point par excellence. Their new album showcases traditional Quebecois
folk-tunes, but from a position that is innovative not only in terms of music but also in terms of artistic
perspective. After all, what do you do when you’re a folk band covering songs from a deeply patriarchal, even
misogynistic colonial era, one where maidens are married off without their consent, or wind up spinsters in
spite of deep-seated passions?
Well, you start by rewriting those folk tunes, which is precisely what Melisande [electrotrad] has done.
Fronted by the talented chanteuse of the same name, their new album Les Metamorphoses features modernday remakes of traditional French-Canadian folk tunes. But the powerful singer who heads up this talented
foursome isn’t bound by the past; she reinterprets and even rewrites some of the songs to give women the
power and agency which a reconsideration of traditional history might reveal them as possessing. This isn’t just
a quirky approach to song-writing: it’s the very raison d’etre of Melisande’s latest strike at the folk genre. The
band’s bio makes no bones about their challenge to tradition: “Melisande decided to examine the plight of
women in traditional Quebecois music… Bringing in electronic beats, a feminist perspective, and the cuttingedge music of modern Montreal… Melisande stepped into Quebecois traditional music with the express
purpose of modernizing French-Canadian women’s role in trad-folk”.
A perfect example of this remarkable style is the traditional tune “Sort De Vieille Fille” (“Role of an Old Maid”),
a folk song in which an aging woman laments over her lack of a husband. Melisande embellishes the song with
a boppy, almost J-Pop ‘80s style synth-line, and then reworks the lyrics into a celebration of women’s agency,
in which an intelligent thinking woman realizes the virtues of not being encumbered with a husband.
This is Franco-Canadian folk done Melisande style, in which minor variations recontextualize the women of
historical Quebec as active, powerful characters wielding the agency folk stereotypes have often denied them.
And why not? These are, after all, folk-tunes for the modern era, reworked not only with feminist lyrics but also
with modern beats and electronic accoutrement.
The album’s opening song sets the stage, and typifies the style: “Je Fais La Difficile” kicks in with rising
electronic beats paired perfectly with piercing and fast-paced violin, haunting flute and the powerful, upbeat
vocals of the group’s female lead singer. The upbeat style is echoed on other impressive offerings such as “Le
Vin Est Bon” and “Dans Paris Y’a T’Une Brune”. Some songs—“Mourir a 17 Ans” and “La Recompense”, for
example—are slower, but maintain the fusion of modern instrumentation coupled with echoes of their trad-folk
origins. Other tracks—“La Blanche Biche”, “Les Metamorphoses”—combine a retro synth-line with emotive
Francophone songwriting. The album also features the talents of Alexandre de Grosbois-Garand (of the
popular folk band Genticorum) on flute and bass; Mark Busic on keyboards and programming, and Robin
Boulianne on violin/mandolin/banjo.
The foursome offer a delight with Les Metamorphoses. Melisande is without doubt the star here: her confident
and adaptable vocals coupled with her creative curation of Quebec folk-tunes (involving the occasional re-write
to make them palatable for a modern, feminist era) ground this album as a creative, inspiring and delightful
milestone in Francophone—and global—folk music.
It’s an album with broad appeal: creative and intelligent content coupled with music that blends the best of old
and new worlds. It’s a positively inspiring, toe-stomping exploration of Quebecois folk that’ll sound just as
natural on the college dancefloor as the folk festival circuit. Melisande is the voice of today’s Quebec: a
creative fusion of tradition and innovation that honors the past while re-interpreting it for the present. If
this is the future of folk, we’re in good hands.
Mélisande (électrotrad)
13 décembre 2014 | Yves Bernard | Musique
Lorsqu’elle se
produit en
son nom,
Mélisande
mène sa carrière d’auteure-compositrice, mais lorsqu’elle ajoute
l’électrotrad entre parenthèses, elle puise dans l’héritage de la
chanson traditionnelle francophone et lui confère une approche
féministe en s’appropriant les mots anciens et en les changeant
quelque peu. Avec son complice Alexandre De Grosbois-Garand et
deux autres collègues, elle mène les destinées de l’un des groupes
les plus prometteurs du trad québécois en mélangeant l’électrique,
l’électro et même le rétro à de belles harmonies vocales. D’ici Noël,
Mélisande (électrotrad) s’arrêtera au Rond Coin de Saint-Élie-deCaxton, à La Korrigane de Québec, et aussi au Labo de la taverne
Jarry, où on fera la fête vendredi soir.
Au Labo, vendredi 19 décembre à 20 h 30.
Renseignements : 514 271-0950 ou www.tavernejarry.ca
Photo: Cloe? Jourdain
Chez Mélisande (électrotrad), la
complainte loge au même bal qu’un air
de Vigneault, pendant que l’électro crée
l’atmosphère ou reflète l’essence
rythmique.
En plus du répertoire du disque Les métamorphoses qu’il a lancé
plus tôt en 2014, le groupe montréalais a récemment réalisé le vidéoclip de la pièce Le vin est bon.
Après les Fêtes, il se produira en vitrine au Folk Alliance à Kansas City. En attendant, le groupe
propose aussi de nouvelles pièces, le vent dans les voiles, fort de son prix de musique folk
canadienne, gagné il y a quelques semaines, Mélisande y ayant été déclarée meilleure chanteuse
traditionnelle de l’année.
Pas mal pour une femme qui ne chante pas à l’ancienne, qui vient du prog et de la chanson. Mais les
inflexions qu’elle injecte aux pièces collent très bien à l’esprit traditionnel autant qu’au caractère
contemporain du son de son groupe. Elle a fait ses premières armes au sein de Mémoire vive, une
formation qui proposait une rétrospective de plusieurs chansons québécoises des années 1970 à
1990. Elle a par la suite frayé dans les sentiers de Robert Fripp en passant par Boston, avant de
revenir pour chanter, jouer de la guitare et écrire ses chansons.
Chez Mélisande (électrotrad), la complainte loge au même bal qu’un air de Vigneault, pendant que
l’électro crée l’atmosphère ou reflète l’essence rythmique. Quant au trad, il est partout, dans le son
d’instruments comme le violon, le banjo et la mandoline, mais aussi au fond de l’âme du bassisteflûtiste Alexandre, du joueur de cordes Robin Bouliane et du claviériste-programmateur Mark Busik,
tous trois fortement implantés dans le milieu traditionnel et au centre du moteur de la nouvelle
génération.
Selon Mélisande, le son des concerts du groupe est proche de celui du disque : « Depuis sa sortie, on
se produit par séquence, ce qui fait qu’il y a un son qui demeure le même. Mais les chansons
prennent un peu plus de vie, la cohésion est plus grande entre nous et les autres musiciens sont en
feu. »
Mélisande [électrotrad]’s New Take on Québécois
Traditional Songs
Posted on February 19, 2015 by Dan Harr
Let’s be honest: traditional folk music doesn’t always share women’s stories in the best
light. In fact, finding a traditional song in which the woman isn’t woefully oppressed,
forced into marriage, killed, or completely absent can be challenging. Because of this,
Québécois chanteuse Mélisande decided to examine the plight of women in traditional
Québécois music with passion and creativity, resulting in her innovative new project,
Mélisande [électrotrad], that creatively merges past and present.
Bringing in electronic beats, a feminist perspective, and the cutting- edge music of
modern Montréal, Mélisande re-interprets some of the oldest songs from Québec’s
musical history. Songs where the women of Québec’s past struggle against the heel of
traditional culture, finding clever ways to assert their own identity as mothers, lovers,
wives, and leaders. Joined by her husband, renowned Québécois bassist and flute
player Alexandre de Grosbois-Garand (of Genticorum), master producer Mark Busic
on keyboards and beat programming, and violinist/ mandolinist/banjo player Robin
Boulianne, Mélisande has polished the mirror of folk music’s past to reflect both her
own heritage and her place in modern society.
Mélisande [électrotrad] at Folk Alliance This Week!!
FRI 10:30 pm – Official Showcase – Benton Suite (20th fl.)
FRI 02:00 am – Spotlight Québec – Room 647
SAT 11:00 pm – The Mayor’s Suite – Room 537
SAT 01:30 am – Spotlight Québec – Room 647
Coming from her early background as a popular Québécois singer-songwriter,
Mélisande stepped into Québécois traditional music with the express purpose of
modernizing French-Canadian women’s role in trad-folk, while at the same time making
music that was both current and honest. By using her songwriting skills, Mélisande
skillfully updates the traditional songs, as in “Sort de vieille fille” (The Role of an Old
Maid)–in which a woman is complaining about her lack of a husband–by adding verses
that give the woman the power of choice. “I wrote some verses that explained that she
wasn’t married because she had ‘opinions,’” Mélisande says. “It makes her a woman
with a head on her shoulders, and it could be a good reason to not have a husband
rather than just ‘Oh well, I don’t have a husband’.”
Not every song she found needed updating, however. “L’ivrognesse” (The Drunken
Woman) portrays a woman who makes her husband stay home with the children while
she goes out to have a good time at the bar. Other songs just needed a little touch, like
“Je fais la difficile” (I’m Being Picky), which features a young woman trying to decide
which husband to take and ranking them according to how annoying their work is. “The
original versions always ended with the women wanting a big merchant” Mélisande
says. “I added ‘I want a musician because he is handy with his hands.’ Also in this song
we had some fun with the verses, adding: ‘We don’t want a politician because we can’t
trust him and his hands are not clean.’ We made some changes like that; they were
changes that ‘updated’ the song.”
On the debut album from Mélisande [électrotrad], Les Métamorphoses, you’ll hear all
the key elements of traditional Québécois music here: la turlutte (lilting mouth music),
les complaintes (old ballads), les chansons à répondre (call-and-response songs), and
the beautiful melodies from old world France; but you’ll also hear elements of alternative
rock and pop, even prog rock. As Mélisande continues to dig deep into the traditional
music of her heritage, she proves that the past isn’t cast in stone, that our musical
identity is our own to create.
For more, visit www.melisandemusic.com/en/
5/8/2014
LaPresseSurMonOrdi.ca - La Presse - 8 mai 2014 - Page #33
http://lapresse.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/services/OnlinePrintHandler.ashx?issue=25282014050800000000001001&page=33&paper=Letter&top=18&left=120…
1/1
CD HotList
New Releases for Libraries
Posted on March 2, 2015 by Rick Anderson
COUNTRY/FOLK
Mélisande [Electrotrad]
Les Métamorphoses
La Pruche Libre
PRU2-4401
Rick’s Pick
Anyone who follows CD HotList has probably figured out by now
that I have a particular soft spot for roots reggae, the FrancoFlemish masters, and Québécois folk music. I also loves me some
electronic pop. I have yet to find an artist who has combined all of
those (if and when I do, I may retire), but with Mélisande
[Electrotrad] I’ve found a really fun combination of those last two.
Blending traditional Franco-Canadian songs and tunes with funky,
chunky, and thumpy electronic drum programming and electric
guitars makes for a delightful departure from the usual, and the
fact that this group does so without ever losing sight of the
essential beauty of the melodies makes everything that much
better. Highly recommended to all collections.
WRUV REVIEWS
This is what's coming to your ears…
MÉLISANDE [ÉLECTROTRAD] – LES
MÉTAMORPHOSES (LA PRUCHE LIBRE)
March 4, 2015 · by Jay Paul · in World/International
A rare reinterpretation of traditional Quebecois music from a feminist perspective.
Mostly traditional folk songs with all the essential elements (call & response, ballads, la
turlutte), but updated with lyrical “adjustments,” awesome vocals, & tasteful electronic
embellishments. A fresh take on a fine genre & a real treat!
Get a taste here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc2Uku3J0oQ
KITHFOLK
Issue 2, Spring 2014
Mélisande Looks to the Québécois Tradition for Songs of Women
by Devon Leger
Folk music fascinates me. The fact that these old, old songs, some with little connection of any
kind to our everyday life (ex: all the Cajun songs about horses and buggies), are still sung and
enjoyed and examined in this day and age is particularly heartening. It makes me wonder what
brings people into the tradition in the first place? What’s the point at which something in the
ancient unknowable of a folk song pulls you out of the present and throws you into the past?
And what does it mean to take all of your creative energy and funnel it into recreating archaic
songs? What I’ve found is that artists who do this are often looking for themselves in the songs.
They revel in the old language and ideas, but are constantly searching for their own reflection in
this mirror of time.
This is the case with Québécois singer and songwriter Mélisande. She got her start as a wellknown pop and rock singer-songwriter on the Montréal scene in Québec, and was known for a
long time as an original songwriter. She’s married now to Alexandre de Grosbois-Garand (they
have two very cute kids together), the bassist and flutist in French-Canadian trad band
Genticorum (who Hearth has worked with before). In effect, she married into the tradition!
Being around Alex and his band and the whole world of French-Canadian folk music, much of
which is much more accessible to American and overseas audiences than the Québécois
chanson tradition from which she came, Mélisande began to adopt the old traditions as her
own. The result is her new project: Mélisande [electrotrad]. Together with Alex on electric bass
and flute, master producer Mark Busic on keyboards and beat programming, and
violinist/mandolinist/banjo player Robin Boulianne, Mélisande [electrotrad] focuses on
Mélisande’s stunningly powerful vocals wrapped around old traditional songs. But traditional
songs that speak to her–namely songs with a strong feminine slant that uncover aspects of the
life of women in French-Canadian and old French society. Speaking with Mélisande and Alex
backstage at the Festival La Grande Rencontre in Montréal where I was attending the World
Trad Forum, Mélisande talked a bit about how she came to “discover” trad music later in life
[her words are translated here from French]. “Without Alex, I would probably be in the group of
people that don’t know trad, because I was doing pop, rock, and even progressive music, you
know. So surely it was meeting Alex, but also it was going to all the festivals with Alex and
Genticorum. I took all that in, being in contact with the music and with the songs. Plus there’s
the fact that I like interpreting songs. So rather than doing, say an homage to Bob Dylan, well
now it’s like these trad songs are original songs, because nobody knows these old songs.” After
deciding to form a group with Alex, Mélisande pored over old books and old archival
recordings looking for songs that spoke to the plight of women. “I started reading the texts of
these songs and found that the themes were still very current… I was looking for material that
was about women’s issues, and for example, women who are afraid they will never marry, that’s
very current among today’s adolescents – whether or not you have friends, romantic partners,
love.” I asked her whether these old songs didn’t seem hopelessly out of date and she
referenced the traditional song “Le vin est bon” (Wine is Good) which is on the album and
references the “business of women”, like sweeping the house, much of which is supposed to
be out of favor today. But on the other hand, women DO still sweep the house in many cases
(she called me out on this, since it’s true that my wife actually does do much of the housework).
So whether we like it or not, the songs still have very specific meanings today.
As a songwriter, Mélisande was also interested in molding the songs a bit. She spoke to the
difficulty of modifying a classic song like “J’ai planté un chêne,” a cover on the album by the
legendary Québécois songwriter Gilles Vigneault, because it’s so well known. But the traditional
songs aren’t as well known, so perhaps there’s a chance to slip in some new ideas, something
which would likely have been part of the tradition in the first place. Speaking about the song
“Sort des vielles filles” (The Fate of Young Girls), Mélisande described her songwriting process.
“[That’s an] example of the plight of a girl that doesn’t have a husband. She does everything to
get a man. She does her hair, she has nice shoes, she is good looking. It’s all a bit “posh” and I
needed to lengthen the song so I wrote some verses that explained that she wasn’t married
because she had ‘opinions.’ I wrote two verses that say ‘I have a head, I know how to read and
think and it scares guys that I like my liberty.’ That is really my invention, and it makes her a
woman with a head on her shoulders, and it could be a good reason to not have a husband
rather than just ‘Oh well, I don’t have a husband’.” I asked if there were instances in the
tradition of young women like this who bucked the trend and refused to compromise their
personalities. Mélisande brought up the last track on the album, “L’ivrognesse” (The Drunken
Woman). “It’s about a woman who goes out and says ‘woman are so crazy to obey their
husbands. Me, I am not like that, I command him at my pleasure.’ She says that she is going to
the tavern and tells her husband to sweep the floor and take care of the child while she drinks a
tall glass. In the song, she is at the tavern when her husband comes looking for her and she
says: ‘Wait a minute, I need another half hour, I’m having some fun.’ Then the song ends with
‘the good wine for the women and the well water for the husbands’.” It’s a song with many
versions that probably comes from France originally. “I took what interested me,” Mélisande
says, “and then ran into some problems with the words of some songs.” She cites the example
of the song “Je fais le difficile” (I Do What’s Difficult), which features a young woman trying to
decide which husband to take and ranking them according to how annoying their work is. “The
original versions always ended with the women wanting a big merchant. They don’t want this
guy, they don’t want that guy, but they want a big [rich] merchant. I added ‘I want a musician
because he is handy with his hands.’ Also in this song we had some fun with the verses, adding:
‘We don’t want a politician because we can’t trust him and his hands are not clean.’ We made
some changes like that; they were changes that ‘updated’ the song.”
Mélisande and Alex’s electrotrad project is a fascinating combination of the music they were
first in love with, alternative rock and pop, and even some elements of prog rock. It’s more
similar in a sense to the long-form explorations of electrified trad groups like Steeleye Span
than any kind of “Skrillex folk” fusion. And what underlies the whole album is a great sense of
love, both for each other, but also for the tradition. In a sense the songs are examinations of
love as well. As Mélisande scoured the far corners of the tradition to find the songs, she
consciously selected songs that reflected different aspects of romantic love from a female
perspective over a number of centuries. Which is a beautiful thing.